INSIDE ART

By Carol Vogel

Published: June 18, 2004

The Louvre Heads South

For several years, museums around the world have been bonding in new ways. In addition to obvious things, like lending artworks and organizing joint exhibitions, some have begun buying art together and others are embarking on cultural exchanges.

A new arrangement between the Louvre in Paris and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta has been in the works ever since their directors collaborated on ''Paris and the Age of Impressionism: Masterworks From the Musée d'Orsay.'' During the planning of that 2002 show, Henri Loyrette, then at the Musée d'Orsay, and Michael E. Shapiro, director of the High, began discussing other ways they could collaborate. Mr. Loyrette became director of the Louvre in April 2001.

''We mainly think of big museums like the Met or Chicago, but one of my hopes is that the Louvre can work with museums all around the U.S.,'' Mr. Loyrette said in a telephone interview. ''It's important for us.''

With the High opening three new buildings designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano in autumn 2005, it is planning to have a series of long-term loans from the Louvre, including works by Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez and Watteau. Beginning in autumn 2006, one of the High's new buildings will have 10-month rotating installations of art from the Louvre.

The two museums also plan curatorial exchanges.

The arrangement gives the Louvre a presence in a place not usually thought of as an art capital. For the High, the chance to borrow from the Louvre's rich collection and have continuing exchanges with curators is invaluable.

''The Louvre realizes it's a great brand, one that can be exported,'' Mr. Shapiro said. ''Each of our curatorial departments is talking about an active set of programs.'' While the collaboration is provisionally set for three years, Mr. Loyrette said he hoped the two museums would build something long-term together.

The Aztecs Are Coming

When ''Aztecs'' was on view at the Royal Academy of Art in London last year, it was one of the most popular in the academy's history, attracting about 450,000 visitors and selling more than 30,000 catalogs, 150,000 postcards, 10,000 Mexican toys and 6,000 tequila-flavored lollipops.

Figures aside, it was the dazzling array of art and objects that captivated Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, when he saw the exhibition. Mr. Krens then made numerous visits to Mexico City and met with the officials from the National Museum of Anthropology.

''Every few years we do an exhibition that is not about modern or contemporary art,'' Mr. Krens said, referring to shows about Brazil, Africa and China that the Guggenheim has organized over the years. ''I thought the material was staggeringly beautiful and would look wonderful in the Frank Lloyd Wright building.''

After considerable negotiations, the Guggenheim plans an Aztec show of its own that will be bigger than and different from the show at the Royal Academy (which traveled to Berlin and Bonn).

The Guggenheim's ''Aztec Empire,'' to run from Oct. 15 to Feb. 13, is being organized in collaboration with two government agencies based in Mexico City: the National Institute of Anthropology and History and the National Council for Culture and the Arts. Felipe Solís Olguín, director of the National Museum of Anthropology and one of the world's leading experts on Aztec art and culture, is the show's guest curator. It is the first survey of Aztec culture in the United States since the National Gallery's ''Art of Aztec Mexico: Treasures From Tenochititlan'' in Washington in 1983.

While some of the objects were shown at the Royal Academy, the Guggenheim exhibition will feature 450 works from major collections in the United States and Mexico, many of which have never been seen outside Mexico. (The Royal Academy's show had 380.) They include treasures only recently uncovered at the Templo Mayor archaeological site in Mexico City, among them two monumental figures of fired clay, one of an Eagle Warrior and the other of Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead.

The show, to be organized thematically, will chronicle the richness of Mexican culture. Enrique Noten, founder of TEN Arquitectos, an architectural firm with offices in Mexico City and Manhattan that is building a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library across the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music and a Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Harlem, is to design the exhibition, with J. Meejin Yoon.

After closing in New York on Feb. 13, the exhibition is going to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, where it will be on view from March 1 to Sept. 4, 2005.

Sticker Shock

The Museum of Modern Art will charge a $20 adult admission fee -- more than any other museum in New York -- when it reopens its vastly expanded home on West 53rd Street on Nov. 20. (Those 65 and over pay $16 and full-time students, $12; children 16 and under are free.)

''It's a more expensive museum to operate,'' said Glenn D. Lowry, the Modern's director. Before closing in 2002 for its $858 million expansion, the Modern charged $12.50. The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Frick Collection both charge $12; the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a suggested admission of $12. At the moment, the highest-ticket institution in town is the Guggenheim, at $15.

Still, Mr. Lowry said the price is not unreasonable. ''It's not expensive compared to other leisure activities,'' he said.

At the Asia Society

The Asia Society announced this week that Melissa Chiu, curator of contemporary Asian and Asian American art since 2001, has been named its new director. She replaces Vishakha N. Desai, who has been director for 13 years and is becoming president of the society. She follows Nicholas Platt, who is retiring after 12 years.

Photo: The Louvre's ''Head of a Young Man'' by Raphael, to be lent to the High Museum. (Photo by Musée du Louvre, Paris)